Letters,

Alternative proposal

Re: Ottawa adds $800K to Naawi-Oodena design (Aug. 22)

With the federal funds offered for designing development of the former Kapyong barracks land, perhaps Treaty One Development Corporation could look beyond building more unneeded retail space for southwest Winnipeg.

A Wisconsin Dells-style indoor/outdoor waterpark resort hotel would attract winter tourism and provide youth recreation and employment opportunities. It could also serve as a pleasant summertime option for housing evacuated families from fire-threatened, northern Manitoba communities.

Wayne Manishen

Winnipeg

Letters mean little

Re: Carney has ‘productive’ phone call with Trump amid bilateral tensions (Aug. 21)

Prime Minister Mark Carney and Foreign Minister Anita Anand met with their respective American counterparts. They claim to have discussed the ongoing “humanitarian situation” in Gaza, “including the urgent need for humanitarian aid to flow unobstructed, for Hamas to lay down its arms and for the hostages to be returned.” Anand also signed a multinational joint letter, rightfully condemning Israel for greenlighting what they call “controversial” settlements in the West Bank.

The situation in Gaza is not a “humanitarian crisis,” it is — according to a growing number of human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and even Israeli-based B’Tselem — a genocide. To frame the situation in such a way as to lay equal, or more, blame on Hamas betrays logic and decency at this point; and it’s an affront to our collective intelligence.

The asymmetry in weaponry, cruelty, and casualties is incomparable to anyone who has seen the destruction and starvation on social media, and even in some Israeli press like Haaretz.

To further call the planned expansion of settlements in the West Bank “controversial” is to brazenly ignore international law. Those settlements are illegal under the Geneva Conventions and Rome Statute of the ICC. Occupying forces have no right to seize more land.

Meagre threats and letters, even in the “strongest terms” are meaningless in the face of such unchecked brutality. Canada must hold itself to a higher standard, abide by international law as a signatory to the UN Genocide Convention, and act, not utter empty threats. A full arms and trade embargo would be a meaningful step and could not come sooner.

Evan Marnoch

Winnipeg

Using what we have

Re: “Cattle don’t cut it” (Letters, Aug. 19)

I agree that cattle are not the be-all-and-end -all of grassland maintenance. They are not magical creatures that can fix everything. But they can be part of the solution.

I raised cattle for more than 40 years. “Industrialized animal agriculture” does not accurately depict our operation. But we live in an industrialized world, whether we live in the city or the country. We must learn to use what we have in order to improve our environment. That includes cattle.

Also, with regard to soil damage done by foraging cattle, I note that rampaging bison herds in pre-settlement days damaged some areas so badly that they are only now beginning to grass over again. Case in point: the Carberry sandhills.

Kerry Arksey

Winnipeg

Bring back Community Connections

Re: City must make improvements to Millennium Library (Aug. 16)

Thank you for this vivid opinion piece, highlighting improvements needed at the Millennium Library. The shuttering of the Community Connections space is hard to understand. Compared to the city’s police budget, the cost to run it was miniscule. What is it they say about an ounce of prevention?

It brought to mind my years as a teacher, when resources with critical value for student flourishing received inexplicable funding cuts, both in schools and community centers. One year on my way to work, I watched expensive, palatial renovations and expansions taking place at the McPhillips Street Casino in preparation for the 1999 Pan American Games. The contrast felt cruel.

Our spending choices often reflect our values. I urge the City of Winnipeg to consider the author’s excellent suggestions: “to allocate funds for renovations on the fourth floor, for more workers throughout the library system, and for the immediate re-establishment of the Community Connections space.”

Lydia Penner

Winnipeg

Pushing Canada to act

When U.S. President Donald Trump forced us to harden our border, at the cost a billion plus, over minor flows of fentanyl into the United States, he could have better served his country, and ours, by compelling us to address a real and more urgent crisis — uncontrolled wildfires.

While others condemn lawmakers in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Dakota filing a formal complaint against Canada with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the International Joint Commission, we applaud them for rightly telling Canada to stop the flow of smoke-filled air southwards. They are telling us to be better neighbours. They are telling us, and rightly so, that we are not doing enough to control wildfires, that the fires create serious respiratory and other health issue and that destroying trees works against efforts to use trees as carbon sinks.

Our nation’s leaders are fully aware, and have been for decades, that we are not equipped to deal with the scale of forest fires. It is not just a matter of building more water bombers. We need to create a permanent force of fire fighters to do year-round prevention, suppression and control. We should create a countrywide wildfire fighting force made up of Indigenous and northern peoples and those who work in resource industries. The Indigenous Fire Guardian programs in Alberta give us an example of what can be done across the country.

The lives and incomes of those who work in northern mines, and in forestry, hunting, fishing, and trapping, and tourism, are being disrupted. Northerners are losing their homes, and forced to evacuate, becoming as the Free Press notes, internal climate refugees.

A national firefighting force is a nation-building project for reconciliation with Indigenous communities, and with the earth. It would offer protection to First Nation communities and the home of birds, animals, fish, and insects. It would also protect our resource industries, including forestry and mining. In our view, saving the forest is more important than building roads or pipelines. Our forests could be a carbon sink, storing carbon and helping to mitigate climate disaster. Instead, because of our lack of care, the forest has become a carbon emitter.

We encourage the U.S. lawmakers to wake us up and spur us into action.

Peter Kirby, Henry Rasmussen and Doug Orchard

Kenora, Ont.